“The Jungle Book” is the latest in Disney’s current obsession of making live action remakes of its animated classics. While this has resulted in divisive movies, if this movie is any indication, it’s making some damn good films too.
Anybody with passing knowledge of the original movie knows the plot to this one —Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is orphaned as a baby in the jungles of India, where he’s found by the leopard Bagheera (Ben Kingsly) who takes him to a pack of wolves that raise him as their own. But when the menacing, human-hating tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) vows to kill the “man-cub,” Bagheera has to take him to the man-village and safety. Hijinks ensue from there.
While movies should stand on their own, the fact that this film is a remake of what’s widely considered a classic means comparisons are inevitable. It’s good, then, that this version of the story is in every way an improvement over the 1967 film, with a more linear story, better acting and far better animation and special effects.
The original movie is infamous for having almost nothing to do with Rudyard Kipling’s original novel, with characters either being very different or created whole cloth — the scat-singing ape King Louie, for example, was entirely made up. This version of the movie takes cues from both, keeping characters and characterizations from the movie while incorporating more of the drama of the books. The result is a story that’s much darker than the first film — characters actually die here — but also more impactful and emotional.
While the first movie glosses over Mowgli’s backstory with the wolves, here we actually see his upbringing among them. In fact, the first real emotional scene is Mowgli saying a tearful goodbye to his wolf mother, Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o), who clearly loves him like he was her own. In fact, there are strong performances throughout the film — Bill Murray is the best he’s been in a while as the lazy but good-hearted bear Baloo, and his interactions with Kingsly’s Bagheera is endlessly entertaining. Kaa the python (Scarlet Johansson) is re-imagined from a silly joke to a creepy, terrifying giant whose one scene is a highlight of the movie. Christopher Walken as King Louie shines as well as a giant ape that’s equal parts humorous and scary.
But none of these characters stand up to Shere Khan. Calm and polite one instant, a savage killer in the next, there’s no question why all other animals fear him. His sheer presence is felt throughout the movie, even when he’s not on screen.
With the exception of Sethi, who does a phenomenal job considering he’s a little kid acting in front of a blank green screen, everything we see, from the ground to each leaf on the trees, is a meticulously crafted special effect. In fact, considering there’s only one real person on-screen, it would be more accurate to consider this film an animated remake that only looks live action.
But perhaps the film’s greatest accomplishment is just how real it looks. We realize the animals are CGI since most of them talk, but kudos to the FX team for making talking animals that still look like real animals instead of cartoon characters. What we don’t realize, however, is the rest of the jungle isn’t real, either.
While computer graphics have given us beautiful scenery before, this is perhaps the first time when the scenery is so real you don’t realize it wasn’t filmed on site.
This movie is also less episodic than the first one, which oftentimes felt like a random set of events in sequence. There’s also changes to the plot so it doesn’t end the same, either.
That’s not to say there’s no drawbacks, however — some animals don’t talk, for reasons that aren’t adequately explained. The famous songs from the first film are also here, but the more realistic approach means they feel badly out-of-place. At least one song feels like it’s only there because someone said it had to be included. And though the special effects are usually seamless, there were a few points where it was obvious it wasn’t real.
But these are nitpicks in what is otherwise a very good film. While too intense for children, fans of the original, or even the books, should check this out.
